hip-63503

Its story

78 Ursae Majoris is a relatively close neighbour, only 83 light-years away, inside the bowl of the Great Bear. An F-type, yellow-white sun, it belongs to that family of stars slightly hotter and faster-burning than our own. Its light set out in the early twentieth century, when the first radio broadcasts were crossing the Atlantic. Glued to the most recognisable asterism of the northern hemisphere, it is one of those stars that nearly everyone has looked at without knowing.